There is a growing movement of open-source applications in medicine. In concept .. it's great. Lots of people join together and agree to build a product that solves the problems we all share. Freepm is one example, as is Medsouce … and ther is good discussion of the topic at linuxMedNews. But (of course there is a but) … the user interface of these products alwasy stinks. Matthew Thomas makes an excellent pont about the UI problem for open source projects. UI is the MOST important component of a product's design .. and most often, UI is the last priority. The 1st Mac had a good UI and the "real" computer users called it a toy. But it was really the 1st time that people thought about how to make the computer help the user .. rather than the user adapt to the computer's limitations. We should EXPECT the computer to help us .. rather than expect the user to adapt. If the software has great functions that are hidden behind rotten UI .. the functions may as well not be there at all.
Open Source Projects have rotten user interfaces
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